Nashville is on the short list of cities under consideration for the next round of Google Fiber, the tech giant announced today.

The California-based company is looking at nine metro areas to deploy its high-speed Internet and TV service, which delivers Internet speeds at one gigabit per second, up to 100 times faster than basic broadband.

"Nashville is a fast-growing, vibrant city, and this announcement speaks to our momentum as a city of the future," Nashville Mayor Karl Dean said in a statement. "Google is still in the early stages of looking at our city's infrastructure, and we look forward to working with the company as they explore the possibility of bringing Google Fiber to Nashville."

Other cities on the list include: Portland, San Jose, Phoenix, Atlanta and Charlotte, among others.

"I think we can all agree that Nashville is the intersection of technology and music, and we think that's a super exciting place to be," said Matt Dunne, head of community affairs at Google, who is in town today for the announcement. "We are excited to see what a community like Nashville can do with a gig."

As the city strives to raise its tech profile and attract and retain new talent, Nashville business leaders have been advocating for better citywide infrastructure supporting high-speed Internet, pointing to nearby Chattanooga as an example.

The company hopes to announce which cities will move ahead with Google Fiber by the end of the year. If all goes smoothly, the consensus is Google could be delivering Fiber to households by the end of 2015, Dunne said.

But in today's announcement, Google warned that inking a fiber deal in each city is a long way from done.

"It takes a lot of collaboration with cities to build a new network," the company wrote in a fact sheet. "Today we're starting a joint-planning process -- basically a series of conversations and information-gathering exercises. Later this year we'll have updates on which cities will get Google Fiber."

Part of the uncertainty is that fiber-optic cable -- which, in Google's case, first aims to reach residential users -- is a big lift to install, including citywide construction and installing thousands of miles of new cable. In Provo, Utah, Google bought the city's fiber-optic network, paving the way for it to become the country's third Google Fiber city, behind the Kansas City area and Austin.

According to its website, Nashville Electric Service owns a 170-mile fiber-optic network, but it's not clear yet whether Google would be eligible to lease or use any of the existing network. Not including the fiber that the utility uses for internal communications, NES leases out fiber to 16 customers serving 86 locations.

"Building Google Fiber is a big job," the company wrote. "It's construction work -- literally digging up streets and climbing up poles. This could be enormously disruptive to a community that's not ready for it -- residents and city leaders alike. So we want to get ready together, up front and make things as smooth and predictable for everyone as we can."

But Google’s Dunne sounded optimistic about Nashville.

"We didn't choose Nashville to be a part of this joint planning process by accident," he said. “It's a city that has a reputation for thinking outside the box and moving at what we like to think of as Google speed."

Local tech entrepreneur Mark Montgomery, who has been instrumental in bringing Google to Nashville over the years, said he, and others, are committed to making sure this happens.

"To me, what's in the way is so small compared to the benefit," he said. "I think it would be suicide to stand up and go, 'This is a bad thing.' … I don't think you can find any real, logical reasons why this isn't a good thing."

Montgomery sees Googles interest as another market validator for Nashville, another reason to put Nashville in the national spotlight as a city to watch. But he also thinks it will spur more competition, which in turn will benefit consumers and drive innovation. Montgomery pointed to Austin, where AT&T brought its own fiber-network after Google announced it was entering the market.

Finally, he sees tremendous public service benefits, especially in low-income areas of Nashville that are traditionally underserved by Internet access. Google Fiber runs a Community Connections program in other cities, which gives select public and nonprofit organizations Google Fiber connections for free.

Dunne said it's too early to know whether or not Nashville, if selected, would benefit from a similar program, but said Google is always looking at similar programs.

"We are certainly committed to making sure we can include as many people as possible in the digital age," he said. "This is something that we have tried in our initial cities -- we are too early a stage to know if we would do that in Nashville, but we will be exploring creative ways to engage the community."

Michelle Lacewell, spokeswoman for the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, said the announcement was exciting for future economic growth and prosperity.

"We see investment in infrastructure … as important to the region for growth, and every community wants to be able to increase their capacity for telecomm to serve business and residents," she said. "It opens the conversation."

Montgomery and his team at FLO{thinkery} are hitting the streets and taking to the Web to spread the word about Google Fiber and rally support, directing people to this Web page created by Google.

Discussions are still in the early stages, but here's what getting Nashville ready for Google-Fiber will look like:

Sharing of detailed, accurate maps of existing infrastructure (sewers, telephone lines, utility poles) between the city and Google

Ensuring Google can access and put its fiber on existing poles or conduits

Reviewing the city's permitting process to make sure the construction phase can move quickly without any hold-ups related to volume.

If Nashville progresses beyond the planning stage, a team of engineers and surveyors will design the network (and a backup network) street by street before any construction begins.

When construction of the network does begin, it's worth noting that Google Fiber follows a "build-by-demand" model. The fiber network passes into each neighborhood via a box called the telecom cabinet, which can deliver fiber to hundreds of neighbors in the surrounding area, creating "fiberhoods." Each fiberhood will only be lit up when a certain number of residents indicate they want the service.

"We focus our energy on a handful of fiberhoods at once, doing an all-out installation and construction blitz," explains the company. "We do this so we can provide you with better, faster service; we won't make you wait around for a crew that's stuck across town. After we're done in one fiberhood, we'll move on to the next."

Although Google Fiber is exploring a small business network, Dunne emphasized that the main priority is residential and consumers.

"We believe that the next generation of applications will be built for gigabit-speed technology," he said. "Apps are only good when consumers can use them and we believe that consumers want faster speed."

He also added that it could be attractive to entrepreneurs and IT workers, two growing and vital sectors of Nashville's economy.

"[It's] attractive to entrepreneurs who don't necessarily do their best work between 9 and 5," he said. "They do it in their garage and spare bedroom at all hours of the day. … We are excited to see what an innovative city like Nashville can do with that capacity when they have it at their access."